I’ve been blessed with several opportunities to speak to students at my local university. A professor, that I admire greatly, likes to have career individuals come in and discuss technologies used in the industry. One year I was introducing the students to code repository and container technologies, such as GIT and Docker, technologies I enjoy immensely. During the discussion, the professor left for a short time. After he left, a student, who was quiet up until then, raised his hand for a question. When I turned to him, he asked “why are they not teaching us these technologies here at the University? They seem fundamental to being a programmer.” My response was not well received: “You are here to get educated, not trained to be a programmer.” The students’ blank stares told me this distinction was unfamiliar to them. We continued on discussing technologies, but this short conversation represents the confusion that exists in our culture about our university system and their primary responsibility.
For a short time, the industry actively recruited people with liberal arts degrees. Eastern Airlines has their famous saying “You educate them, we’ll train them.” Why did the industry emphasize a liberal arts education? What I’d like to discuss is the concept of generics, how a liberal arts education relates to it and how generics is an incredibly important aspect in a complex systems.
Consumer Provider Paradigm
All complex systems are hierarchical. In order to be complex, a system has to distribute its complexity into smaller interconnected modules. Think of a human: our organs are smaller modules that together creates the structure of a human. These modules encapsulate a responsibility that is needed in order for the complex system to function. Your heart pumps blood, your kidneys clean your blood, etc. One important relationship between modules is its dependency structure. A human depends on organs in order to exist. The human is a new quality that can only exist by its dependencies: the organ. But the hierarchy doesn’t stop there. Humans become a module in other systems, like a employee in a company or a member in a church. The company and the church are dependent on the module that is the human, just like the human is dependent on the organ. But the hierarchy doesn’t stop there either. The company is a module in the economy and the church is a module of society.
This relationship between dependencies is what I call the Consumer Provider Paradigm. Why “consumer” and “provider”? The dependency between the hierarchical modules is that of a consumer and provider. Your organs provide a service to the human while the human consumes their services. Same thing at the next level of the hierarchy: the human provides a service to the company and church while the company and church consume the service of the human. This dependency in complex systems is about consuming and providing. What a module consumes or provides is unique to the module, but this rule is absolutely important:
All modules in a system have to consume lower level dependencies AND also provide to higher level modules.
No module can only be a consumer or a provider alone. They have to be both. Take the human: they have to consume the services of the organ in order to function, but they also have to provide services to the company and/or church. When a module only consumes or only provides, the module can no longer fit within a complex system and will eventually be removed.
Black Swan Events
Because of this Consumer Provider Paradigm, complex systems are always incredibly large in scale. For example, there are many many hierarchical biological modules that make up your own body, all the way down to the atom. Because of the large scale of all complex systems, due to the structure that is produced from the Consumer Provider Paradigm, nothing can fully conceptualize the entire system. Because of this, complex systems are susceptible to Black Swan Events. A black swan event is a highly improbable and unpredictable event that has massive and widespread consequences. This concept was popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.”
There are three main aspects of a black swan event that are important: rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective predictability. Most complex systems of importance are fairly robust. One can make predictions that are mostly accurate by using the law of averages. However, since complex systems are unfathomable by nature, some major “glitches” can happen. Since these complex systems are fairly robust, these glitches happen rarely. But, they can have a major impact. This impact can be positive or negative.
The majority of Taleb’s examples of black swan events were negative: the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 2008 global financial crisis, World War I, and the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Positive black swan events don’t create much anxiety, but negative ones can take down systems. Because negative black swan events can cause way more damage than the positive ones do good, we humans naturally are bias towards loss aversion. This is called Prospect Theory, a theory developed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. This theory states that people feel the pain of losses more intensely than the pleasure of equivalent gains. For example, losing $100 typically feels worse than the joy of gaining $100.
What are the best ways to prevent negative black swan events? Taleb gave several concepts on how to handle negative black swan events in his book Antifragile. One of those concept is that of Optionality.
Optionality
One of my pet peeves as a software architect is when a junior software developer creates a piece of code that can only do one thing. A piece of code that can only do one thing lacks options, or what a systems engineer would say is that it is “low in optionality.” To create a robust system, one that can handle negative black swan events, modules within the system need to be created with high optionality.
Optionality provides the ability for modules within a complex system to be a dependent in more than one way. For example, think of it in something that you use everyday, like a vehicle. The more options that a vehicle provides, the more ways one can use it to provide transportation. Hybrid vehicles provide more than one energy source: gas or electric. Pickup trucks have the option of using only two or all four wheels as to provide the ability to perform well on both paved roads and off-road terrains. And so on. The more options for a module, the greater the ability for it to be adaptable and flexible.
Why optionality is important is that when a negative black swan event happens, optionality provides the ability to the system to adapt at every level. When a system is properly distributed and modules self-restricted to their responsibility, the sources of the negative event can quickly be understood. The additional options can then provide the ability to make adaptive changes to quickly reduce the negative events. Think again of a vehicle, if a truck is stuck in the mud, enable the four wheel drive. If the hybrid runs out of battery, turn on the gas engine. Even though these situations aren’t a traditional black swan event, it illustrates how optionality provides the adaptability needed to overcome a negative event.
Law of Diminishing Returns
However, as an engineer, the trick is to provide many options that fit within the responsibility of the module within the complex system. In my article Know Your Freedoms: Responsibility in Complex Systems, I go over how each module within a complex system needs to have a responsibility and the freedom to fulfill it. For example, a vehicle has the responsibility to transport items and people across a terrain. Another example that I give in the article is the responsibilities of the different organs in your body: your heart and the complexity of pumping oxygenated blood, the kidneys and the complexity of filtering waste products from the blood, etc. The optionality provided for each module in a system needs to be relative to the responsibilities the module has to fulfill. A vehicle shouldn’t have a retractable landing gear for an option since that is outside its responsibility for transporting items across a terrain. Similarly, the heart shouldn’t have any option to clean waste out of the blood since that is outside its responsibility.
One of the drawbacks of optionality is the application of it quantitatively. Just adding a lot of options, without the vision of understanding the responsibility of the module within the system, will only lead to bad results. A classic example of this is the Swiss Army Knife. What is a Swiss Army Knife? Is it a knife? Or is it a Scissors? How about a saw? It contains many many different unrelated functions into one module. As a systems engineer, this would be a monolithic system: one module that can do many different functions. One can argue that this would be valid implementation of “optionality” in the quantitative sense.
Back to the example of optionality with vehicles: adding more options will make the vehicle more adaptive, but adding other options will make it more brittle. For example, what if we added a feature to toast bread? It’s an additional option to the vehicle when you might need to toast bread, but it is completely outside of the responsibility of the vehicle: to get a person from one place to another. But Jesse, you might say, nobody would be dumb enough to add a toaster to a vehicle! This is an extreme example to prove a point, but here are some actual options for vehicles that were sold on the market: in 2004, MINI introduced the MINI Cooper S XXL, a climousine featuring an integrated whirlpool at the rear; In 2009, Honda introduced the Dog Friendly™ package for the Element, which included features like a cushioned pet bed and spill-resistant bowl. Sadly there’s more.
Just adding more options to a module in a system will not make it more robust. The options need to be qualified and scoped to the responsibility of the module. Adding more options without proper qualification will lead to diminishing returns over time. In economics, this is called the Law of Diminishing Returns. This law suggests that at some point, the addition of more options leads to reduced benefits or increased complexity within the module without a proportional gain. With the vehicle example, the more options that are added, the more complex the maintenance will be over time. This is quickly becoming an issue with the auto industry due to the gluttony of electronic and software options they are adding to the vehicle. The Law of Diminishing returns states that soon the maintainability and extensibility of the vehicle will be quickly compromised due to the overwhelming complexity of the entire number of options available. Ever take your car in because of some software issue and have the mechanic tell ya “we don’t know how to fix that.” It’s happened to me many times already, and will probably only get worse.
Truth Seeking
Sadly the quantifiable ideal is way more prevalent in our society than one would wish. In my industry, “data driven” is oversaturated with quantifiable thinking. Everybody wants more data! However more data usually means more noise. A wise man once asked me this important question:
What’s the difference between data and information?
His answer blew my mind: information is qualified data! Or, information is data that leads to truth. The opposite of information is noise. Noise distracts us from truth. Our aim should always be to pursue truth. In business, rather than merely striving to be data-driven, we should prioritize truth-seeking. When we focus on truth, we can better discern between meaningful information and irrelevant noise. This clarity enables us to gather insights that lead to more effective solutions for our clients.
This principle aligns closely with Christian teachings: Jesus emphasized the importance of truth and living in alignment with it. In John 14:6, Jesus declares:
I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
To fully connect with God, one must seek truth. In the relationship between consumer and provider, truth illuminates the path forward, guiding decisions and enabling us to qualify options effectively. These judgments, I believe, are revealed to us. Similarly, as I write this book, I find that silencing the mind is essential to gaining insight. In my article Creating New Ideas Through Boredom, I explore how quieting the mind creates space for inspiration and fosters creative problem-solving.
So if we’re limited in how much optionality we can add to a module, but we have to add optionality to a system to make it robust against black swan events, how do we properly provide optionality to modules in a system? I believe that there is another aspect of optionality that helps with maintaining the quality of a system in that it helps make modules reusable. However, there is another level of quality that will help us to ensure the ability to create positive black swan events in the future: this concept is generics.
Generics
Asking people to define “generics” has been an interesting endeavor. The overwhelming response to this question went something like this: a cheap knockoff of a name brand pharmaceutical. It always came back to pharmaceuticals, specifically! In any case, the heart of the definition that is prevalent in our culture is that it has to do with a cheap or lesser alternative to an original. This, I believe, is a devastating definition to a concept that is so important.
Here’s is a definition of “generic” from a complex systems perspective:
A module in a system that is highly versatile and can provide in many unforeseeable ways that are valid to its responsibility.
This definition is more about the quality of how a dependency provides value. A complete contrast to todays definition that is culturally prevalent is more focused on quantity; allowing for a cheap copy allows manufacturing to provide more of something at a cheaper cost. This can be seen as a good thing, but I believe its really a symptom of an deeper issue within the pharmaceutical industry: drugs are researched and designed to solve specific problems. True generics should be able to solve many unforeseen problems.
A hammer, for example, is a generic tool. Its so generic, it can be used to create or destroy. It can be used it to create a shed in your back yard, but it can also be used to create a space shuttle to take humans to the moon. What’s the responsibility of a hammer? To deliver impact to an object. Use your imagination to dream of different types of solutions that a hammer can be used to solve that don’t exist yet. That’s generics!
Another example of generics are motor vehicles. The responsibility to a motor vehicle is to get a person or people from one point to another. What makes motor vehicles generic is that it allows people to go to just about any place on land. By contrast, trains and trams can take people to only specific places due to its reliance on rail. Due to the generic nature of motor vehicles, they have been the de facto mode of transportation, especially in rural areas. The way they are built provides many unforeseeable ways that a person can get around.
In my industry (software), we have another word for genericizing a solution: productization. When creating a solution for a client, we naturally create a specific solution. This one solution will address the one client’s need, but won’t for any other client since not everybody has the exact same problem to solve. Productization is the process of genericizing a solution so that it will solve many more problems. An example in the software industry: we could create a custom website for selling t-shirts for a client that only sells t-shirts. Or we can create a more generic e-commerce framework that would allow clients to sell general products, such as t-shirts, but any other type of product. By genericizing the solution, we can provide a solution to many more clients without much effort or cost. But generic solutions are usually an 80% solution. I’ve never been able to create a generic solution that will accommodate all requests for a client.
Productization forces us to create more complicated solutions. Creating that generic solution, while also keeping it simple to use, is incredibly difficult to accomplish. The best generic solutions can provide many options without much complexity. It needs to provide way more benefit than costs. The optionality that is using a generic solution needs to be asymmetric.
Asymmetric Optionality
Here is where I admit that the definition of Optionality that I provided earlier is not that of Nassim Taleb’s. In fact, its quite the opposite of his concept. I’m sure that if he was reading this, he wouldn’t have gotten this far just out of sheer disgust: calling me a fragilista or worst, an economist. Taleb spends a huge portion of his book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder qualifying his concept of Optionality. One of his main points in defining Optionality is on asymmetry: the idea that certain options or strategies provide disproportionate benefits relative to their downsides, especially in uncertain or volatile environments.
In essence, asymmetric optionality is a cornerstone of Taleb’s broader concept of antifragility: systems, people, or strategies that thrive and grow stronger in response to uncertainty and adversity. It encourages embracing opportunities with a large potential upside while guarding against excessive risk.
An example of this is writing books: The effort and cost of writing are limited, but a successful book can generate significant income, recognition, and influence for decades. Another example is Venture Capital: Venture capitalists often invest small amounts in many startups. Most of these startups fail, but the few that succeed provide massive returns, more than compensating for the losses from the many failed startups.
To contrast this, the definition that was discussed earlier was primarily a quantifiable approach to the concept. Meaning, add more options without judging the quality of the option. Sadly, as discussed before, this is a natural reaction to solving problems without discipline or experience. Taleb’s beautiful concept is a qualitative idea wrapped in systematic thinking. It’s about improving the quality of the system.
To the motor vehicle example, they have many upsides (like being able to go to any place on land) with few downsides (just need gas). However, there is a downside to motor vehicles that urban areas are only now starting to realize: motor vehicles as a transportation module doesn’t scale very well. Congestion is becoming an exponential problem in all modern urban areas. The only way to solve this is to increase optionality at a higher level in the system: motor vehicles need to be one option with micro mobility, train, trams and buses. By providing more options at a higher level, we are increasing the upside while decreasing the downside.
Optionality relates to choosing or creating options that provide way more “upside” than “downside”. It is qualifying the options in a way that will help or hurt the system in the future. Generics, on the other hand, is about providing options that can be used in unforeseeable ways. The difference is subtle, yet substantial. Asymmetric Optionality can contain specific and generic solutions. However, generic solutions are needed in order to fully achieve what the majority of businesses can only dream of happening: a positive black swan event.
Positive Black Swan Events
As a software engineer, my career has been centered around building tools. There’s an incredible sense of satisfaction when I see clients using the tools I’ve developed, especially when they do so with ease and intuitive understanding, without encountering much friction. But there’s a remarkable experience I’ve had the privilege of encountering a few times in my career: clients using the tools I designed to accomplish things I never anticipated or imagined. That feeling is nothing short of euphoric.
Earlier we discussed what Black Swan Events are and that these events can be positive or negative. We also discussed how Optionality can help with negative Black Swan Events by allowing us to easily adjust and adapt different modules within the system to negate the negative consequences. However, we didn’t really talk much about positive Black Swan Events.
The concept of generics is, I believe, central to the creation of positive Black Swan events. Let’s take a look at some examples of positive Black Swan events in history. One of these is the introduction of Apple’s iPhone. When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, it redefined the smartphone industry, creating an entirely new ecosystem of apps and services and revolutionizing how people interact with technology. Another example is Google’s Search Engine. While there were earlier search engines, Google’s algorithmic innovation led to unparalleled access to information and transformed how people navigate the internet. What these two examples have in common are that they are generic solutions: they can be used in many unforeseeable ways. The iPhone can be used for making phone calls or managing your blood pressure. The Google search engine solves the general problem of “finding information,” enabling use cases ranging from casual queries to academic research and even e-commerce optimization.
All the examples of positive Black Swan events that I’ve researched share a common thread: they are deeply connected to the concept of generics. From The Printing Press to The Internet, positive Black Swan events were caused by generic solutions that provide unforeseeable solutions. These generic solutions are remarkable because they serve as foundational frameworks, capable of addressing a wide range of problems, many of which were entirely unforeseeable at the time of their inception. In each case, these positive Black Swan events illustrate how generic solutions, by their very nature, create fertile ground for innovation and emergent possibilities. They provide a flexible, scalable foundation that adapts to unforeseen challenges and opportunities, often reshaping industries and societies in profound ways.
Although these positive Black Swan events have profoundly shaped humanity, their origins are deeply ironic. Each of these widely transformative innovations began as a solution to a highly specialized problem before evolving into a more generic application.
The printing press, originally designed to replicate religious texts, eventually enabled the mass production of books, newspapers, and educational materials, democratizing access to knowledge. The steam engine, first invented to pump water from coal mines, became the driving force behind locomotives, ships, and industrial machinery, powering the Industrial Revolution. The internet, initially created for secure military communications, expanded into a global network that connects billions of people, facilitating commerce, education, and social interaction. Computers, originally developed to break encrypted codes during World War II, evolved into general-purpose machines that now power everything from personal devices to artificial intelligence. Vaccines, first developed to combat smallpox, laid the foundation for immunology, leading to the prevention of countless diseases and the extension of human lifespans.
All of these breakthroughs started as niche solutions before evolving into broadly applicable technologies. It was only through this transformation that they became the world-changing innovations we recognize today. This highlights the critical role of adaptation. Whether in technology, where we call it “refactoring” in software development, or in personal growth, as Christianity emphasizes being “Born Again.” The ability to adapt is what allows solutions to transcend their original purpose and become universally impactful, more generic!
Interestingly, this insight wasn’t mine but came from a close friend who was reviewing a presentation I was making on this very topic. He quickly noticed that my list of generic solutions had all originated as highly specific ones, sparking a deeper realization about the power of adaptation. And this is exactly why it’s so important to allow people to critique your ideas. Sometimes, the most valuable insights come from an outside perspective.
These, and other examples of generics are more technology related our discussion. However, is there an equivalent idea at the social or intellection level?
Meekness
Much like how the definition of generics has been misconstrued over time, the meaning of meekness has also been distorted. Our current western culture seems to conflate meekness with weakness. Terms like “submissive” or “pushover” are often used to describe a “meek” person. Some dictionaries, like Merriam-Webster, describe how a meek person is “dominated”: “a meek child dominated by his brothers.” However, these interpretations sharply contrast with the original meaning of meekness, which aligns more closely with the idea of generics.
The original Greek word often translated as “meek” in the Bible is πραΰς (praus). This term can be found in texts such as the Sermon on the Mount where, in Matthew 5:5, Jesus states:
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
The word “praus” was originally used by the ancient Greeks to describe a wild horse that had been tamed and brought under control. These were strong and powerful animals, but their energy and strength were harnessed and guided, not broken. The term conveyed the idea of power under control: a horse that retained its strength and spirit but was disciplined and obedient to the rider’s commands. This was important when the ancient Greeks rode these tamed wild horses into battle: the wild spirit of the horse gave them energy while the skill developed through training allowed the horse to endure harsh battle environments. Spirit and training are at the heart of the original term for meekness. Or, the horse had to be ready for many unforeseeable situations so that it can fulfill its responsibility: transporting the warrior into battle.
Here’s a more abstract definition of praus: preparing to be applicable, or adaptable in many unforeseeable ways in order to fulfill responsibilities. At the heart of meekness is generics. The ancient Greek horses had to be trained so that it could be adaptable under stressful situations in battle. They needed to be adaptable and agile. If the horses were specialized, then the horses would struggle outside of their narrow focus. For example: a horse trained exclusively for racing might excel on an open field but become agitated or ineffective in close up combat. Preparedness for the unknown was essential!
The ancient Greeks understood that their horses needed to be more generic. This adaptability ensured that their resources could meet the diverse needs of their society efficiently. Eventually the concept of “generics,” would spread beyond their equestrian practices to other aspects of their lives, including politics, philosophy, and interpersonal relationships. For this idea to take root and influence in so many facets of Greek life, it was deeply embedded in their educational system. The Greeks were pioneers in the concept of a well-rounded education, which was the foundation of the their educational system that they created called the “liberal arts.”
Liberal Arts Education
The liberal arts has been the at the root of the western educational system since the 5th century BC in Greece. Philosophers like Plato emphasized the need for an education that went beyond practical skills to include the arts and sciences that were considered essential for a free citizen. The curriculum was designed to cultivate a well-rounded individual capable of independent thought and civic engagement. This idea was inherited in the early Christian Church where early Christian scholars like St. Augustine (354–430 AD) and Boethius (c. 480–524 AD) were heavily influenced by classical education. They embraced the liberal arts as a tool to understand and explain Christian theology.
During the early Middle Ages, Christian monasteries and cathedral schools became the centers of learning. They adopted the Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy) as the basis of their curricula. By the 12th century, the liberal arts had become the foundation of the curriculum in the first European universities, which were established under the auspices of the Church. Christians integrated the liberal arts with theology, seeing them as complementary rather than conflicting.
The liberal arts curriculum was designed to cultivate versatility and critical thinking, preparing individuals to excel in a wide range of fields and challenges. By training citizens to think broadly and adapt principles across domains, the liberal arts became a vehicle for spreading and reinforcing the value of generics throughout one’s culture. Unlike specialized training, which hones skills for a singular purpose, the liberal arts emphasized the development of universal skills—such as logic, rhetoric, ethics, and mathematics—that could be applied across disciplines. The Greeks, followed by the Christians, believed that by fostering a well-rounded intellect, individuals would not only be better prepared to address the complexities of their immediate roles but also adaptable to new and unforeseen contexts, making them more “generic.”
In his book You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a “Useless” Liberal Arts Education, George Anders explores the value of a liberal arts education in a rapidly changing job market. Anders argues that the core strengths of liberal arts education are becoming increasingly essential as new job categories emerge and traditional ones evolve. Due to the exponential growth of technology, how the economy is evolving faster than ever. Anders demonstrates how the diversity of job types has grown exponentially, emphasizing that we’re living in an era of unprecedented opportunity and transformation in the labor market. Liberal arts graduates are uniquely positioned to succeed in this rapidly changing landscape due to their adaptability, critical thinking, and ability to learn quickly in unfamiliar contexts.
Even though our ancestors understood the benefits of generics, focused on the virtue of meekness, and built an educational system based on generics that flourished for centuries, our modern culture has lost this understanding. We are hyper-focused on specialization and vocational training. Our university system has slowly changed from a focus on creating well-rounded citizens to training people for specialization with the introduction of the “major” in 19th century Germany. This shift, over the last century, has led to a narrowing of perspectives, where students are increasingly prepared for specific jobs rather than for the broader challenges of life and citizenship. While specialized knowledge is undoubtedly important, it risks leaving individuals without the critical thinking, adaptability, and ethical grounding necessary to navigate the complexities of a rapidly changing world. The result is a generation of highly skilled professionals who may struggle to engage with broader societal issues or think across disciplines, ultimately weakening the social fabric and the capacity for innovation in our culture. However, there is still an opportunity to reconnect with the wisdom of a more holistic education, where the principles of generics and broad-based learning can help shape the next generation of leaders, thinkers, and innovators who are equipped not just with specific skills, but with the deeper understanding and adaptability to thrive in a complex world.
Overview
Generics is a module in a system that is highly versatile and can provide in many unforeseeable ways that are valid to its responsibility. This is essential for not only creating a maintainable and adaptable system, but it is a necessity for creating a system that can create positive Black Swan Events: rare events that positively alter the course of history. This basic concept of generics is infused in our western values through our religious and educational systems by the virtue of meekness.
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